Flue

Last night we were watching our nieces while my brother and his wife went out on a date night.  We had just gotten the girls in bed upstairs, and since I was chilly downstairs I fired up their gas fireplace.   Ten minutes later their fire alarm (which is tied to their burglar alarm) was loudly beeping in every single room in their house.  I mean every single room in their house was beeping.  Every single room.

After we got the alarm off, the fire off, the widows up, and the girls back in bed, my husband looked at me and said: "Did you open the flue before you started the fire?"